As abortion issues have assumed center stage, the Biden administration on Monday revoked former President Donald Trump's regulation prohibiting family planning clinics from making abortion referrals to patients.
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued its final regulation to complete the repeal of the Trump administration's rule that barred clinics from receiving Title X federal funding if they referred patients to abortion providers.
Biden's regulation, which restores the Title X program to its 2000 and 2019 form, will effect on November 8. In a statement, HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra said the rule is a step forward for family planning treatment, as per The Hill.
Biden administration's decision to entice hundreds of care providers
The Title X program, which has been in place for more than 50 years, provides funding to clinics that primarily provide low-income people with infertility treatment, contraceptive information and counseling, and breast and cervical cancer screenings.
Direct payment for abortion treatment has always been forbidden under Title X. However, under the Trump administration's regulation, these clinics could not also refer patients for abortions, in what opponents and reproductive rights groups referred to as a "gag rule."
According to the Guttmacher Institute, around a quarter of clinics that received Title X financing quit the program in reaction to the Trump-era change, costing them federal funds. Planned Parenthood, which left the program, formerly treated around 40% of Title X patients.
Clinic advocacy groups believe that the Biden administration's decision would entice hundreds of care providers who left in protest of Trump's policies to return, therefore helping to stabilize a long-running program that has been rocked by the coronavirus outbreak on top of ideological disputes.
Per USA Today, women's groups branded Trump's proposal a "gag rule," while medical groups said it violated the clinician-patient relationship. On the other hand, religious and social conservatives applauded the legislation for requiring a strong separation between family planning services and abortion. Clinics could not utilize government funds to pay for abortions under federal law.
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Joe Biden vowed to lift limitations on family planning facilities
In 2018, family planning clinics served around 3.9 million customers, but HHS believes that number dropped by roughly 40% due to the Trump policy. According to the agency, the disruption may have resulted in more than 180,000 unplanned births.
Although President Joe Biden pledged to lift limitations on family planning facilities, abortion was not a major topic in the 2020 presidential election. It might become one in the midterm elections in 2022 to decide who controls Congress.
The new regulation comes amid a pending Supreme Court lawsuit that some believe may weaken or even overturn Roe V. Wade. The Supreme Court will hear arguments in Dobbs V. Jackson Women's Health Organization on December 1, which challenges a Mississippi statute that prohibits most abortions when "the likely gestational age of the unborn human" is greater than 15 weeks.
The head of the Judicial Crisis Network, Carrie C. Severino, told The New York Times, "There are going to be people losing their minds over this case, whichever direction it goes."
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